{"id":25335,"date":"2021-04-26T13:25:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T17:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=25335"},"modified":"2021-04-26T13:39:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T17:39:20","slug":"department-seeks-applicants-for-farming-for-healthy-soils-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2021\/04\/26\/department-seeks-applicants-for-farming-for-healthy-soils-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Department Seeks Applicants for Farming for Healthy Soils Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3><strong><i>Technical and financial assistance provided to install key soil health practices<\/i><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"25336\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2021\/04\/26\/department-seeks-applicants-for-farming-for-healthy-soils-program\/attachment\/maryland-farming-for-health-soils-program\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?fit=1024%2C512&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1024,512\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Maryland Farming for Health Soils Program\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?fit=300%2C150&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?fit=760%2C380&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-25336 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?resize=760%2C380\" alt=\"\" width=\"760\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?w=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?resize=300%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/04\/Maryland-Farming-for-Health-Soils-Program.png?resize=768%2C384&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 760px) 100vw, 760px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>ANNAPOLIS, MD <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2013 The Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) is now accepting applications for farmers interested in enrolling their fields in the Farming for Healthy Soils<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">program. Participating farmers will receive free technical assistance and financial incentives to help install the following soil health practices:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Conservation tillage;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multi-species cover crops;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Extended season cover crops;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prescribed grazing; and<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Precision nutrient management.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cost-share funding of $10 to $55 per acre is available to help farmers adopt these key practices. Free technical assistance will be provided by<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/resource_conservation\/Pages\/technical_assistance.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">local soil conservation districts<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/extension.umd.edu\/locations\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">University of Maryland Extension<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and will include field evaluations to measure changes in soil health. Financial assistance will also be offered for soils data sampling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maryland\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/resource_conservation\/counties\/SoilHealthFlyer3_22_21.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Farming for Healthy Soils<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">program is funded by a three-year, $1 million grant awarded by the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfwf.org\/programs\/chesapeake-bay-stewardship-fund\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. In its second year, the grant promotes the use of on-farm soil health practices that increase carbon sequestration, improve soil productivity, and protect water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund is a partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Grants Program and the Small Watershed Grants Program. Additional support is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Altria Group Restoring America\u2019s Resources partnership.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Farmers who want to enroll study fields in this program should contact MDA\u2019s Healthy Soils Program Coordinator Kevin Antoszewski at <\/span><a href=\"mailto:kevin.antoszewski@maryland.gov\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">kevin.antoszewski@maryland.gov<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. For more information about Maryland\u2019s Farming for Healthy Soils<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">program, please visit MDA\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/resource_conservation\/Pages\/Soil-Health.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"># # #<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Twitter <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/mdagdept\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">@MdAgDept<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technical and financial assistance provided to install key soil health practices ANNAPOLIS, MD \u2013 The Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) is now accepting applications for farmers interested in enrolling their fields in the Farming for Healthy Soils program. Participating farmers will receive free technical assistance and financial incentives to help install the following soil health<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2021\/04\/26\/department-seeks-applicants-for-farming-for-healthy-soils-program\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25338,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25335\/revisions\/25338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}